Sights along the Way…plus a Surprise!

Following the Hancock Shaker Village near Pittsfield Massachusetts, we wandered along a number of local roads and 2 state highways, headed in the general direction of Old Deerfield…

I started out by checking out a local railroad museum…

This is the ‘new’ old Lenox Massachusetts Railway Depot at 10 Willow Creek Road.  The original Lenox Depot was built in 1850 by the Stockbridge and Pittsfield Railroad.  It was leased by the Housatonic Railroad and subsequently by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.  But it burned down in 1902.  The current depot was completed in 1903.

 

The station was abandoned by the railroad in the 1950s and then found use as a repair shop, carpentry shop and as a warehouse.  In 1986, the building was donated to the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum.  Years of hard work and significant funds have restored it to its appearance back in 1903. 

Today the Lenox Depot is home to the Railway Museum’s offices, ticket office, museum and the museum store. 

The Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum also operates the 1893 Depot in Stockbridge Massachusetts as well as a replica Block Station, the latter being used by railroads in the early days to control safe train movements.

The Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum owns quite a bit of rolling stock.  The top photo shows Locomotive 562 which was built by the American Locomotive Company in 1950 as well as BRMX 67, that little black and orange diesel-electric locomotive.  Locomotive 9128 in the second photo was built by General Motor’s Electro-motive division in 1957.  In total, BSRM owns 8 locomotives, a couple of self-powered diesel coaches, several passenger coaches for the operation’s scenic trains and several other miscellaneous pieces of equipment.

In addition to the Lenox Depot with its railyard, and the Stockbridge Depot, the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum also operates scenic rail tours out of North Adams Massachusetts.  To learn more about this organization, the museum, their collection of rolling stock and the opportunity for a rail tour, go to https://www.berkshiretrains.org/.

Next we wandered east along MA Hwy. 9.  When we passed through Dalton, I stopped to take this photo of the Dalton Town Hall Building and Free Library.  This Romanesque style structure was completed in 1893 and has been occupied by both local government and the library since it opened.

Dalton was settled in 1755 and it was officially incorporated in 1784.  By 1829, Dalton had 3 paper mills, a gristmill and 5 sawmills.  Paper making became the town’s largest industry.  In 1801, Zenas Crane started a paper making business and in 1844, Crane’s developed its distinctive bank note paper.  More than 170 years later, Crane and Company is the largest employer in Dalton and the company is still making all of the paper that the USA uses for its currency.   The company supplies other countries with their currency paper as well…

Laurie loves the stone walls you see when you drive the back roads and byways in New England.  This photo was kicked up a notch with that nice old barn behind the wall…

This building at 457 Main Street in Ashfield Massachusetts was acquired by the Ashfield Historical Society in 1964.  It was built in 1830 and the ground floor was used by various merchants until 1900.  The upstairs had been used as a meeting place for secret societies that had flourished in the mid-1800s.  To learn more about Ashfield’s Historical Society and this museum, just go to http://ashfieldhistorical.org/.

Ashfield was first settled in 1743 and it was incorporated in 1765.  The population of the town today is about 1,700.  Of note is the fact that famous movie director Cecil B. DeMille was born here while his parents were on vacation.  His most famous movies, at least for those of us who are still alive, were The Greatest Show on Earth and The Ten Commandments. 

This is the Field Memorial Library at 1 Elm Street in Conway Massachusetts.  With its domed rotunda, Italian marble, original woodwork, a spiral staircase and cast-iron shelving, this is an over-the-top example of late nineteenth-century architecture.  It was built in 1901, by Marshall Field, founder and owner of Marshall Field and Company, as a memorial to his parents.

 

When Marshall Field completed this structure in 1901, he was one of the 10 wealthiest men in the USA.  He’d been born on a subsistence farm in Conway in 1834, but he wanted to be a merchant, not a farmer.  Still, he felt that whatever success he had in life, it owed it to his parents.

We finally drifted into Old Deerfield Massachusetts and Historic Deerfield.  These old trees and the wide street combined, provide a sense of what this place feels like…

As per an article I read, this tree-lined avenue appears much the same as it did in the late 1700s when the Reverend William Bentley visited and wrote: “The Street is one measured mile, running north and south.”  He went on to note that “There is a gate at each end of the street and about 60 houses in better style, than in any of the towns I saw”.  Today, 25 of those homes still stand and Historic Deerfield has moved others to this site.

The Street is not all museum… I don’t think that this house is part of the official historical attraction in Historic Deerfield, but it is a very appealing home and it ‘fits the part’ in this old town.

Historic Deerfield, located in the village of Old Deerfield, is a multi-building museum that is dedicated to the heritage and preservation of Deerfield Massachusetts as well as the history of the Connecticut River Valley.

Eleven house museums are included in Historic Deerfield.  In addition there is a modern museum and a visitor’s center.  Most of the homes are viewed on guided tours.  We didn’t have enough time to take a tour so we just drove through and took pictures.  In addition we’d visited a lot of historic homes already on this trip…  With more time Historic Deerfield would have been a great place to visit.

This is Historic Deerfield’s Dwight House.  It was built ca. 1754 in Springfield Massachusetts.  When it was threatened with demolition in 1950, it was dismantled and reassembled here.  It is one of 4 houses along the Street that weren’t here originally.  It now serves as a museum of the historic trades.   

Historic Deerfield has over 28,000 artifacts.  They include furniture, ceramics, textiles, clothing, embroidery, paintings, maps and prints, silver and metal ware, glass, powder horns, folk art, books, manuscripts, documents and much more…

Frary House was built ca. 1750.  It has been interpreted to depict the 1890s home of Miss C. Alice Baker, who restored the home in 1892.  Miss Baker was a teacher, collector and antiquarian.  The focus of the home is to interpret the village’s arts and crafts movement. 

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, education, tourism and the sale of arts and crafts helped sustain the village and its residents.  Tourism was big business in the increasingly industrialized USA, with people seeking a break from their hectic lives…not much different than today’s tourists.

This is a relatively ‘new’ building in Historic Deerfield.  The building housing the Wilson Printing Office was built in 1816.  Other than the fact that old time printing techniques are on display and sometimes demonstrated here, I wasn’t able to find out anything about this home. 

A little history about Deerfield.  It was first settled in 1673.  As a frontier settlement, it was regularly attacked by Native Americans.  It was abandoned after the 1675 attack at Bloody Brook at South Deerfield.  That was followed by a retaliatory attack on the Native Americans in which 200 of them were killed, many being women and children.  Deerfield was resettled in 1682 but faced several more raids in the 1690s, culminating in a devastating raid in February of 1704.  Fifty citizens were killed and 112 were marched off to captivity in Canada.  It was a bloody era…that’s for sure.

If we’re in the area again, we will definitely spend a day touring this multi-faceted museum.  Historic Deerfield is located at 84B Old Main Street in Old Deerfield.  Phone: 413-774-5581.  Website: https://www.historic-deerfield.org/.

This was our surprise!  As we sped along US Hwy. 5/MA Hwy. 10 just south of Old Deerfield, we did a U-turn when we spotted the sign announcing Magic Wings – Butterfly Conservatory and Gardens.  This was something new and unexpected!

Magic Wings features an 8,000 sq. ft. indoor butterfly conservatory.  Its home to almost 4,000 exotic and domestic butterflies.  As you can see, it’s an indoor tropical wonderland.  As per Magic Wings, they are focused on butterfly related education, recreation, entertainment and related gardening needs. 

I’ll be perfectly honest.  I don’t know much of anything about butterflies other than we both like them and plant perennials that attract them along with our friends, the bees.  So, I will spare the commentary and just show you a number of butterfly/moths photos.  FYI, those little devils are hard to photograph unless they’re feeding…  

This was just a small sample of the butterflies living at Magic Wings.  We forgot about time and just focused on the magic…and our attempts in photography.

There were quail wandering around on the ground in the butterfly jungle and we said hi to the parrot.  There were also some koi in the jungle pond and tortoises and a number of interesting displays in the room off the conservatory.

Magic Wings – Butterfly Conservatory and Gardens is located at 218 Greenfield Road (US 5/MA 10) in South Deerfield.  It has been open since 2000.  They are open 7 days a week.  For more information and some great photos, you can go to http://www.magicwings.com/. 

What!!  A tobacco barn in Massachusetts!?  We took about a dozen photos in an effort to capture the beauty of the scene… Too bad there aren’t some beneficial uses for tobacco!

Connecticut shade tobacco is tobacco grown under shade in the Connecticut River Valley in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and southern Vermont.  It is primarily used for binder and wrapper for premium cigars.

   

Next stop, Northampton Massachusetts and Dinner!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!  Big Daddy Dave